


Smoke

by orange_panic_archive



Series: Let Me Count The Ways [6]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captivity, Enemies to Lovers, Equalist Asami Sato, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Canon Relationship, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29484018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_panic_archive/pseuds/orange_panic_archive
Summary: Asami Sato had been given a choice in the secret room underneath her father's mansion. But really, what choice was there? A life as a second-class citizen, cast aside by her boyfriend for the Avatar just as all of society had cast aside non-benders for centuries? Or a chance to join the resistance that would change it all and bring real equality to the world? In the end, she had hardly hesitated.When the Equalists' surprise attack on the United Forces destroys the fleet meant to aid the Avatar, General Iroh finds himself captive and at the mercy of their newest recruit.
Relationships: Iroh II/Asami Sato
Series: Let Me Count The Ways [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165019
Comments: 20
Kudos: 32





	1. In the Room

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for a while, but haven't been sure how to go about it. It's not a torture fic, in that I tried not to make anything gratuitous, but things happen that aren't good. For those who read my other stuff, please read and heed the tags. This one goes very dark. 
> 
> I own none of the LOK content. Season 1 alternate ending. As with most of my fics Iroh is mid-20s. Comments always welcome.
> 
> M for language, violence.

Iroh saw the blow coming, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, tied as he was. He lowered his chin, clenched his jaw, and squeezed his eyes shut. When it came the pain was unbelievable, exploding across his cheek in a blinding flash, but he did his best to let his head and neck roll with it. He’d been taught how to take damage, and this wasn’t his first time being hit in the face. Spirits, it wasn’t even his first time today, though the metal glove was certainly an unwelcome addition.

“Answer when I ask you a question,” the Equalist said, the skinny one who had only been watching earlier. His voice was flat and oddly muffled behind his… what did you even call that thing? Helmet? Mask? Up close it looked like a diving suit worn backwards so the fabric covered the whole face, but with lime green pilot’s goggles thrown in for good measure. Iroh wasn’t even sure how the man breathed, let alone saw well enough to fight. But he was the one strapped to a chair, not them, so it was hardly his right to criticize.

He realized his mind was starting to wander and tried to focus on the pain in his cheek. As tempting as it might be to let himself fall unconscious, every minute he stayed awake was one he could use to gather information. Iroh was pretty sure he wouldn’t live long enough to tell anyone what he learned, but he’d never forgive himself if he did only to turn up empty handed. Besides, he was honestly interested. Who were these people, really? What had made them so angry, angry enough to kill their own neighbors? Amon wasn’t the first person to foment anti-bending sentiment, so what had made him so powerful? Iroh didn’t want to die, not even a little bit, but if the United Forces required his sacrifice he’d give it. That had always been a possibility. But he was damned if he was going to die curious.

“I don’t know,” Iroh said again. It hurt to talk, and his voice came out slurred. He hoped nothing in his face was broken. “Commander Bumi’s fleet could be anywhere.” This was mostly true. His next step was going to be to radio Bumi for reinforcements. He’d never gotten the chance. He’d ordered the commander to be within a day’s sail of Republic City just in case, but that could be anywhere in a radius of about 200 miles. Did Iroh have a good guess as to the 2-3 most likely locations? Of course he did. He’d be a pretty shitty general if he didn’t. But the Equalist hadn’t asked that, had he?

The man raised his hand again, poised to strike a backhanded blow with the electric glove on his right fist. “I’m going to ask you one more time. _Where is Commander Bumi and the rest of the fleet?”_

“That’s a bad idea,” Iroh found himself saying. “If you keep hitting me in the mouth I won’t be able to tell you anything even if I wanted.” 

The man paused. Iroh blinked. He hadn’t expected that to work. Not that he was looking forward to body blows, but his face already hurt so much he hadn’t been able to stand the thought of being hit again. 

“Oh,” said the Equalist. All of a sudden he looked uncertain. His gloved fist drooped a little, as if he no longer knew quite what to do with it.

“You’ve never interrogated anyone before, have you?” Iroh said. For some reason he found the idea very funny. General Iroh II, human training wheels. It also gave him some new knowledge. If it were his command, he’d have assigned the most experienced staff to a prisoner as high-ranking as he was. The fact that they’d put someone new on him meant they either didn’t know who he was—which would be incredibly stupid given his uniform and how they’d fished him out of the bay—or that it was somehow important to train up whoever this was. Which, in turn, meant it likely that the man before him wasn’t just some footsoldier, but someone special. 

“Look,” Iroh said, trying to keep his voice calm. Maybe he could talk his way out of this after all. “We have shared interests. You need certain information out of me. I—”

The man hit him again. This time Iroh was caught completely off-guard. The back of the glove caught him on the side of the chin and his head snapped back. He let out a yell. Black spots danced in front of his eyes as the world swam out of focus.

“We share _nothing,_ firebender!” the Equalist hissed. “And I need nothing from you.” 

_Firebender,_ Iroh thought as everything faded. _Not bender._ Fire _bender._


	2. It Could Be Worse

The next time the Equalist came, he was holding a cup. “Would you like some water?” he asked.

Iroh nodded. He had no idea how much time had passed, but it was long enough that his injuries had stiffened and it hurt to talk. He was very thirsty though. As the hours passed, thirst had slowly climbed up the hierarchy of needs, past hunger and pain and fear and lack of sleep and straight-up boredom to settle in just behind the overwhelming need to piss. He’d tried as long as he could to hold it, hoping his body would simply re-absorb the liquid, but it didn’t seem to work that way. Taking in more water wouldn’t help the situation, but Iroh certainly wasn’t going to pass it up if it was offered. He was in no position to refuse any kindness.

“Where is Commander Bumi and his fleet?” the man asked. 

Iroh sighed. He really didn’t know. “Give me a radio and I’ll ask him,” he mumbled through bruised lips. 

The Equalist poured the cup of water on the ground, then turned back toward the big metal door. Iroh tried not to listen as it gurgled down the drain in the center of the floor. 

“Wait,” he called. He wasn’t going to beg, he wasn’t, but with his arms behind his back he was out of options. “Bathroom. I have to… I have to go to the bathroom. Badly.” The Equalist turned back, looking him up and down, as if for the first time taking in that aspect of his position. Then he turned away again. “Please!” Iroh said. So much for not begging. “Even animals… they’re not just left to sit in it.” 

“I’ll find someone to assist you,” the man said without looking back. Then he left.

In the end, it was one of the least dignified things Iroh had ever done, but one for which he was profoundly grateful. The man had come back not five minutes later with two others. They both seemed much bigger, perhaps guards of some sort. One squatted down in front of Iroh and unceremoniously unbuttoned his fly. The other Equalist positioned himself directly behind the chair.

“Get any on me and you lose it,” growled the one in front. “No second chances.” Iroh nodded. As satisfying as it would be to piss in this guy’s face at point blank range, he knew better than that. He liked his equipment where it was and in good working order. The squatting Equalist abruptly reached into his pants and fumbled his dick out. Iroh had guessed that was coming, but it didn’t make it any less unpleasant or invasive and he fought against the urge to pull away. At the same time, the one behind him tipped the chair forward. Iroh quickly braced his legs to keep from spilling out of the seat. The one in charge, the man who’d been interrogating him, was for some reason politely facing away. 

_ Well, this is as good as it’s going to get, _ Iroh thought. Thank goodness he hadn’t had to shit. He closed his eyes, tried to imagine that he was literally anywhere else, and relaxed as best he could. Before long, he heard the sound of urine hitting the concrete. 

He was appalled to find the noise made him thirsty.


	3. Asami's Task

Asami swabbed carefully at her new electric glove. It was a marvel of engineering; flexible and lightweight, and at full strength able to deliver enough of a charge to knock a grown man unconscious without affecting the wearer. The batteries were a bit cumbersome and needed frequent changing, but she was already coming up with ideas for how to improve that. They could switch to the new lithium ions, or build a charger into the back. She’d even thought about solar, though it would reduce the number of charges dramatically unless she could figure out a way to pack more cells into a smaller plate. 

What Asami hadn’t figured out how to improve yet was cleaning it. 

She inserted the alcohol-soaked q-tip in between the first two fingers and scrubbed. After a bit she dropped the used cotton onto the rust-colored pile and started again. The electric glove being, well, electric, it wasn’t possible to simply dunk it in a bath. It had to be carefully cleaned and maintained, its delicate mechanisms kept free of foreign material.

Foreign material like blood.

As she scrubbed, Asami thought about the man in the room. Except he wasn’t a man, not really. That’s what her father had said, and he was right. The prisoner was a firebender, a wild animal. To think of him as anything else was to invite disaster. Fire had but one purpose: to take, to consume. Destroy. She knew they’d all sleep better once he was safely put down.

Yet the man—no, the _animal_ —in the room had certain information. Information that her father and Amon were convinced would help them win the war. And though she would much rather be spending her time helping to improve the mecha that Future Industries had designed to aid in the resistance, she understood why the task of extracting it had fallen to her. It was, quite simply, a test. Asami’s open loyalty to the cause was relatively new. Even if it had just been for show, she’d publicly dated benders. She’d befriended the Avatar. And while the information she’d gathered about her “friends” had been invaluable, many of the Equalists didn’t trust her.

Crack the general. Locate and destroy the fleet. Locate and destroy the Avatar. If Asami could do these things, no one would ever question her place in their new nation.

Nor her father’s.

But after two days, Asami wasn't sure if her task was even possible. She was starting to consider the very real possibility that the general was telling the truth and didn’t have the information they needed. He’d probably been trained to stand up to interrogation, and he seemed intelligent, but still… she wondered. His story never wavered, even as his cries for water grew more desperate. He was so used to the abuse now that when she came close to him, he flinched. Last session she’d switched from hitting him to electric shocks, mostly in the big muscles of his thighs and shoulders, but he’d said nothing of value in between the screams. If the general had something to give, surely she’d have seen it on his face, even if he hadn’t yet let it cross his lips. Yet when she stared into his odd golden eyes, all she saw was defiance.

“Good girl,” said a voice behind her. Asami jerked out of her thoughts to find her father standing in the doorway. He was a tall, blocky man with gold glasses and a bushy mustache. Though he was only 48, she noticed he had far more gray in his hair than even a few months ago. “I’m glad to see that you take as good a care of your glove as your mother would have.”

Asami had no idea what her mother would have done. She had only been six when she’d been murdered. She only remembered Yatsuko Sato in flashes. The feel of her lap as she laid her head down on the couch. Her hands, nails painted red, as she pulled a sandwich from a picnic basket. Her laughter as Asami chased some kind of half-remembered pet—a lop-eared rabbit?—across a black and white tile floor. Yet her father always spoke of her as if she’d only just stepped out of the room.

She put the glove down carefully, stood, and plastered on a smile. “Of course.”

Hiroshi nodded in approval. “And are you getting anywhere with our guest?”

Asami hated that he called him that. He wasn’t a guest. He was the enemy, someone who’d led hundreds into battle to prop up a tyrannical regime that had oppressed families like hers since time out of mind. Her father made it sound like he’d come to tea.

“No,” she said truthfully. “I’m starting to wonder if he really knows anything.”

Her father frowned sharply. “I’d have expected better from you, Asami. Of course he knows. He’s their general. Even more than that, he’s the son of the Firelord herself. Don’t tell me he doesn’t know anything of value. If he’s not telling you, it’s because you’re being soft.”

Asami put both hands on her hips. “I’m _not_ being soft. He isn’t talking. I’ve tried everything.”

Hiroshi Sato’s eyes narrowed behind his round glasses. “Prove it.”


	4. The Rescue Mission

It was time for a different approach.

Asami carefully stored the glove back in her room in the compound. Then she changed into fresh clothes, a pair of dark pants and her gray and maroon Future Industries jacket. Although she’d never met the general in person before, she’d been seen in this outfit often enough alongside Korra and her friends. If she’d appeared in a United Forces intelligence briefing, she’d probably looked like this. Asami stepped into the bathroom and carefully did her makeup—there had been little point in wearing it under the mask she wore for interrogations—and did her best to shake out her dark wavy hair. Then she went to her dresser and gave herself a single spray of perfume. She glanced in the mirror one final time on the way out and smiled, pleased. It had been a while since she’d bothered dressing up for a man.

 _There,_ she thought. _Let’s go free the general, shall we?_

His eyes widened in shock as she opened the metal door of the holding cell. Asami did her best to look just as surprised as he did, then immediately pressed one finger to her lips. She took a quick look around the cell, as if studying her options, and tried to put herself in the mindset of a would-be rescuer. How would they react? What would they notice? 

The cell was about eight feet wide, its walls of solid metal. A concrete floor sloped down to a central drain. On the far side of the drain sat a single metal chair. There was a young man sitting on the chair, both arms behind his back. He had obviously been beaten, and badly. His short black hair hung limp around his bruised and battered face. His lower lip was split, and the cut above his right eye seemed to have bled quite a bit. He was dressed in the light trousers of a United Forces officer’s uniform, the crimson jacket torn away to reveal a sleeveless white undershirt spattered with dried blood. His pale arms and shoulders also showed signs of abuse, including an enormous angry red burn on his left bicep, and his pants were peppered with drops of blood and what were unmistakably scorch marks. 

The man himself seemed exhausted but alert, his gold eyes tracking her every movement from under his thick eyebrows. Even sitting Asami could tell he was tall, and very fit, his rangy build of the kind that was usually stronger than it looked. She’d make no mistake—even bound and injured, he was almost certainly dangerous. The only thing that fought harder than a cornered animal was a man with nothing to lose.

Asami let the scene sink in, then ran to him in a low crouch. “General?” she whispered. 

He grunted. “Who—?” So he didn't recognize her. So much for United Forces intelligence.

“I’m one of Korra’s friends. I’m so relieved. We’re going to get you out of here.” 

“Korra?” he muttered through cracked lips. “Is she…?”

“I was hoping you knew,” Asami said. She scooted around behind him and started fumbling with the ropes that bound his arms. “We got separated, Mako and Bolin and I. No one has seen her since the battle. Do you know where she is? Did she ever tell you about a hideout, or somewhere else to rendezvous?” 

“Haven’t…” the man choked out. “Haven’t seen her.”

“We aren’t going to win this without either the Avatar or the United Forces,” Asami said. She pulled the ropes a little and muttered, as if stuck. “I sure hope you have reinforcements coming.” 

The general said nothing. _Damn._

“Do you know where Commander Bumi is?” she asked. “How far away is he?”

Suddenly the man let out a sharp laugh. “So it _is_ you. You’re getting better.”

Asami cursed. She abandoned the ropes—she’d only been pulling on them slightly to give him the illusion of untying them—and moved to squat down in front of the general. 

“What gave it away?” she asked.

“Perfume.” He lifted his head to look at her, a little lopsided smile on his ruined face. “No one wears perfume on a rescue mission. And if you’d really been on the run from the Equalists, any scent would have worn off days ago.”

Asami stood. In truth she thought the general could use some perfume—it was hard to be so close to him. “I assume you’re still not going to tell me where the rest of the fleet is? Or the location of the Avatar?”

The general shook his head slightly, grimacing as if the motion hurt. “I never was. And even if I knew, I certainly wouldn’t tell you now.”

“And why is that?” 

His smile widened, but she thought his eyes looked sad. “Because when the masks come off, that’s when you know. When you know for sure that they’re going to kill you.” 

Asami turned to go. He wasn’t wrong. They were always going to kill him.

“Who are you?” he called after her, his voice cracking. “If you’re going to kill me anyway, give me a name.”

“I ask the questions, firebender,” Asami said. Then she left, slamming the metal door behind her.


	5. A Change of Scene

Iroh heard the big metal door swing open. He didn’t look up. It was always the same, or close enough. Why waste the energy?

“Please,” he mumbled, his voice a dry husk. All thoughts of not begging had long gone out the window. His world had shrunk until it contained only two things: water, and pain. Iroh had no idea how long it had been, he had no way to mark the time, but he did know that he’d only had one of the two since he’d been taken captive. And if he didn’t get the other soon, he was going to die. 

The thirst clotted the back of his throat. His head pounded, and his whole body shook. His tongue felt two sizes too big in his mouth. And he was hot, so hot. His shirt felt close, cloying, even without the jacket; if he’d had hands free he’d have torn it in two. The fire inside him was usually a comfort, a warm and twisting presence as much a part of him as his own rushing blood, but now Iroh was _hot hot hot_ and only one thing could make it stop.

 _Before you die of thirst, you go mad,_ he thought. He remembered reading that somewhere. Whoever had written it was probably right. Perhaps it was for the best.

He heard footsteps, then a soft grunt. It sounded like someone carrying something heavy. Iroh decided that he didn’t want to know. Whatever was happening, it almost certainly wasn’t good, and he could do nothing about it. Then he felt something metallic press roughly to his lips.

“Drink,” said a woman’s voice. 

Iroh drank. His surprise barely registered. He’d never felt anything so good in his life. Cool, clear water coated his throat and flooded his senses. He thought briefly that it very well might be poisoned and decided that he didn’t care. He gulped, his body taking over completely, draining the cup as fast as he could in case she changed her mind. 

Suddenly his stomach clenched. Pain lanced through his abdomen as he doubled up, vomiting the water between his legs. The woman skittered away with an alarmed gagging sound. Iroh sputtered and coughed, unable to do much more than try to keep himself from choking. He sucked in air, one breath, two, trying to keep calm. _Focus,_ he thought. _One thing at a time. Stay calm. Get her to bring back the cup, and take it slow._ That was all that mattered.

There was a retching noise. Iroh finally looked up to see the woman from earlier, the one who’d pretended to be a friend of the Avatar. She was doubled over in the far corner, one hand holding her hair, vomiting noisily onto the concrete. A few feet from her a bucket of water sat beside the door.

“Fuck,” she muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fucking _fuck._ I can’t… I can’t do this.” 

She turned around, her pale green eyes locking onto Iroh. “Do you want more water?” she asked. Her voice was low and quiet.

Iroh nodded. He didn’t let his eyes leave hers. 

The woman balled her gloved hand into a fist. “Do you know what it feels like to be electrocuted to death?”

Iroh shook his head. He had a good guess, but she seemed to want to talk.

She opened her palm and there was a crackle of ozone. “All of your muscles seize up. It feels like every one of them is on fire. Your bowels let go. Your eyeballs cook in their sockets. Only then does your heart stop. It’s not a nice way to die. Do you understand?”

Iroh nodded again. Compared to dying of thirst, it actually didn’t sound that bad. At least it would be quick.

“All right,” the woman said. She glanced nervously at the door, then her eyes flicked back to his. She walked over behind his chair, her gaze tactfully avoiding his pile of sick. “I’m going to take you somewhere else for a little while. You try to escape, you die. You so much as twitch or look at me funny, you die. And you don’t die pretty. Got it, firebender?”

It was another trap, of course it was, but at this point he would have agreed to almost anything. The chair, the room, it was the devil he knew. He’d seen how that story played out, and he didn’t like it. Perhaps whatever was coming was worse, but at least it would be different.

“Iroh,” he croaked. “My name is Iroh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line "before you die of thirst, you go mad" is a quote from on of my favorite short stories, "Wine on the Desert." https://www.frontiercsd.org/cms/lib/NY19000265/Centricity/Domain/218/Wine%20on%20Desert%20better%20copy.pdf


	6. Better to Ask Forgiveness

The man, Iroh, sat down heavily on the closed toilet seat. He grunted softly, but said nothing. Then he tipped his head back slightly to look at her. The expression on his face was different now. Confused? Hopeful? Wary? It seemed like all three at once. 

Asami gestured to the shower. “Clean yourself up. Have as much water as you want along the way. And for spirits’ sake don’t… don’t throw up on anything.” She tried hard not to gag as she said it, remembering how he’d almost spit water up all over her. She’d always been the worst sympathy vomiter. One time her father had had the stomach flu and Asami had been almost as sick as he was taking care of him, despite never catching the virus herself. 

Iroh nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

“It’s not a favor,” she snapped. “You stink, and I’m tired of it.” Asami threw a pointed glance behind her. “I’ve got armed guards outside the door with orders to kill anything that moves. So don’t get any ideas, I—firebender. Stay put until I get back or you’re dead.”

Iroh only blinked at her, apparently deciding further threats didn’t merit a response. But his eyes said something else. He seemed almost… curious. Still confused and hopeful and wary as well, but Asami was sure that he was now also interested. As if she were some fascinating new kind of insect, or an abstract piece of art. She’d never met someone who seemed to be able to communicate so much without speaking. It was unsettling to say the least. 

She decided she’d had enough. She was in charge, not him, and the man who was at her mercy had no right to make her feel uncomfortable and exposed in her own bathroom. Asami spun, slamming the door behind her. She did one last scan of her room, making sure she’d removed anything that could reasonably be used as a weapon, then shut and locked the outside door behind her. 

Asami looked both ways down the hall, making sure it was empty. She’d been lying about the guards of course. Grabbing a few thugs to help with interrogations was one thing, but she wasn’t entirely sure what her father or any of the higher ups would think about her temporarily moving the prisoner. Actually, if she was honest with herself she knew they wouldn’t approve, which is why she hadn’t asked them. But spirits, even zoo animals and fighting dogs had their cages cleaned every so often. How was she supposed to get results without decent working conditions? Besides, her current strategy was clearly not working, and she'd get nothing at all if he died on her.

 _Better to ask forgiveness,_ Asami thought. Except if Iroh escaped, there would be no forgiveness, not for her. She knew that, too. She tried not to think about it. The same way she tried not to think about why all of the sleeping quarters locked from the outside.

Instead, she padded back toward the interrogation cell, stopping briefly in a small laundry area to get a few supplies. Though Asami had only been staying in the old hotel the Equalists used as a headquarters for about a week, she’d already memorized most of its twisting passageways. Luckily it wasn’t far, and she encountered no one on the way. The less explaining she had to do, the better.

As soon as she opened the metal door to the cell the smell hit her. Her own half-digested breakfast added to the lingering scents of blood, sweat, urine, male body odor, and thick cotton soaked in days-old seawater. Asami gagged, then forced herself inside. Blast her sensitive stomach. She pulled a blue bandanna out of her pocket and tied it around her nose and mouth. It probably wouldn’t do much, but it made her feel better all the same. Then she unscrewed the cap from the bottle of laundry bleach and got to work.

After less than an hour, the scene had improved remarkably. Of the many bodily fluids that had been spilled there was no sign at all. The concrete glistened wetly, and the metal walls and single chair shone in the soft light. The rope that had bound Iroh’s arms was coiled neatly on the seat. It would never be a pretty room, and the smell of bleach was starting to make her feel a little lightheaded, but at least it was clean. The only thing left was the prisoner’s jacket, which she would take down to the incinerator along with the rags not worth saving. 

Asami picked it up gingerly with two fingers, trying not to touch it more than necessary. It was little better than a rag itself, one sleeve completely missing, torn at both shoulders and covered in burn marks. It smelled like a wet deer dog, or perhaps something that had died on the beach. Yet as she moved it over to the plastic bag she’d brought, it jingled slightly. Asami sighed and put it down. As much as she didn’t want to touch the thing, jingling meant metal, and metal might be important. 

She turned it in her hands and quickly located the source of the sound. A little row of medals had been pinned above the left breast pocket. Each hung from a fat colored ribbon and was no bigger than a small coin. Asami almost left them, then thought better of it. Metals could always be melted and reused, especially gold, and it might be useful in some other way. Ransom, proof of life, whatever. Iroh was, after all, the son of the Firelord. They would still kill him of course, he was too dangerous, but Amon may have some use for proof of his capture nonetheless. 

Asami unpinned the medals and heard a crinkling sound. There was something in the pocket beneath! Her heart leapt into her throat. How could whoever had brought the general in have missed searching him? Or perhaps they had, but hadn’t thought to look in the pocket sealed shut by the long pin that held the medals in place. Asami unbuttoned it carefully, then pulled out a damp set of folded papers. Maps? Plans? Ciphers? The location of the rest of the fleet? Maybe now she didn’t need Iroh at all. Her hands shook as she peeled them open. 

_For My Family_ it read. The rest appeared to be a letter, hand-written in neat block print over four small sheets of thick, cream-colored paper. At the bottom of the final sheet was a single word: Iroh. 

_Iroh._ Asami had almost called him that in the bathroom earlier, too. She didn’t know why knowing his name bothered her so much, nor when she had started calling him that in her mind. It was like he suddenly had a history, a past. Even though she hadn’t read the letter, he no longer only existed in the metal room. He’d come from somewhere. Someone had named him, someone who loved him. Sometime long ago, some unknown woman had held a baby in her arms and whispered to him: _Iroh._ Did he have siblings, or a wife? Children of his own? He didn’t seem that much older than she was, but maybe. Asami thought of her own mother. What if somewhere in the far off Fire Nation, a little girl cried for her father? A father who would never come home.

Asami abruptly re-folded the pages and stuffed them in her pocket, something constricting in her throat. She wasn’t going to think about that.

Instead she gathered up her supplies, carefully keeping her mind blank. There was work to do, important work, and she couldn’t delay any longer. She walked slowly back down the hall, neatly re-stowed the cleaning supplies, then made her way to the incinerator in the basement. There she burned the rags and what remained of Iroh’s jacket. After a moment’s hesitation, she tossed the letter in afterwards.

Asami made her way back to her room. After checking the hallway was empty, she leaned against the door to listen. There was no sound from inside, but that could mean anything. Iroh could be standing just inside, his fists full of deadly flames, waiting for her to walk in so that he could pounce. She couldn’t take any chances. Asami slipped her electric glove back on her right hand and flexed her fist, then carefully placed her left upon the door lock. She turned it. Still no sound. Asami turned the knob, at the same time forcing the door in hard, her right hand outstretched to shock anything that jumped at her.

Nothing did.

In fact, nothing moved at all. Then Asami heard it. The quiet sound of heavy breathing. Her eyes raked her room, looking for where he was hiding. Her room wasn’t all that big, but even so she was so panicked that she almost missed him entirely.

The prisoner, Iroh, was apparently asleep. He’d crawled into the narrow bed at the back of the room, the yellow comforter pulled up so high that almost all that was visible was a shock of thick black hair. He lay on his back, eyes closed beneath his heavy lashes. The blankets rose and fell with each long, slow breath. He didn’t stir. 

Asami froze. She had no idea what to do. This was, quite possibly, the very last scenario she could have imagined. How did one safely wake up a firebender? She was confident enough that he’d follow her orders while awake—or at least, he had so far—but poking a sleeping dragon was another matter entirely. She quickly closed the door and locked it again, then pressed her back to the smooth metal. _Think, Asami. Think. Think._


	7. Damage

Iroh heard the outer door slam shut, then lock. He made himself count slowly to ten, just to make sure the woman was really gone, then launched himself at the sink. He twisted the tap and shoved his face to the faucet as warm water gushed out. His head didn’t fit in the bathroom sink of course, not well at any rate, and it was a long frustrating second before he thought to cup his hands beneath the faucet. 

For a moment Iroh’s entire world was water. It wet his cracked lips, soaked his dusty tongue as it slid down his throat. It cooled his raw and bloodied wrists as it flowed over his hands. He tried to force himself to go slowly to avoid the cramping he’d had earlier, but it was nearly impossible. It was an effort just to pause to breathe. 

Finally, he pulled away. Iroh leaned heavily against the rim of the sink, letting a wave of dizziness pass. He couldn’t waste time passing out. The woman could be back at any minute, and he needed to make the best of his limited freedom. Part of him still couldn’t believe his luck. Whatever had possessed her first to untie him, then to give him water, and finally to leave him unsupervised, he had no idea. She was young for sure, probably no more than 20, and inexperienced. She knew how to fight, or at least how to hit, and had been smart enough to keep changing her strategy, but it was clear to him she’d never handled prisoners before. It still might be some kind of trick, but his best guess was that she was simply overconfident.

The fact that it _was_ a she was also something Iroh was still wrapping his head around. The United Forces had been integrated from the beginning, and some of the bravest soldiers he knew were women, but for some reason it surprised him anyway. Yet he had no doubt that the woman and the masked Equalist were one and the same. In spite of everything, she intrigued him. What would inspire a young woman of obvious intelligence and ability to ally herself with a gang of terrorists? She didn’t strike him as a sadist, despite her brutal treatment. Her face, once he could see it, had been too disgusted. So why had she been put in charge of him in the first place when she neither relished the task nor was very good at it?

Iroh shook his head. Questions for later. He had to keep moving. His first task was to take stock. He knew he was hurt, but it wasn’t clear how badly or what that might mean for his ability to fight his way out of wherever the Equalists had taken him. Still holding on to the edge of the sink, he carefully lifted his left foot until he was balancing just on his right leg. A muscle in his thigh twitched, but he could stand. He repeated the motion with his other leg with similar results. Most of the hits to his lower body had been with the electric glove, which, while extraordinarily painful, didn’t seem to do much lasting harm. That was good news—if nothing else, he could probably run.

Next Iroh peeled off his undershirt, finally forcing himself to face the bathroom mirror. The sight made him wince. His face and upper body were a mass of purple and yellowing bruises. Some of the blows had even broken the skin, leaving semi-circular cuts where metal knuckles had pounded into his flesh. There was no way to know what the Equalists had done versus what he might have sustained in his fall from the ship, but either way, it wasn’t pretty. 

Iroh stopped to take another long drink from the faucet. _Easy does it._ Then he straightened and began to gingerly feel up and down his sides and stomach with his fingers. He was no medic, but there were a few especially tender spots that might be bruised or even cracked ribs. His left shoulder hurt badly enough that it might be sprained. Yet nothing seemed severe enough that it would keep him from moving if he had to. Next, Iroh repeated his gentle probing on his face. His nose was obviously broken, that much he’d already guessed, and two of the teeth on the right side of his mouth felt loose. But as far as he could tell nothing else was worse than badly bruised. More good news. That didn’t rule out any internal damage, and some of the cuts were rather nasty, but still. He might look ugly, but as far as these things went it seemed like he’d gotten off comparatively easy.

The most concerning thing by far was the massive burn on his left arm. Iroh had used his bending to deflect a bomb as it fell from one of the Equalist’s planes, but he hadn’t gotten away unscathed. The same blast that had knocked him unconscious into Yue Bay, allowing him to be captured, had also left a fist-sized burn on his bicep. He was no stranger to burns, not by a long shot, and he knew this one was bad. Oddly enough, falling into the salt water of the bay had probably helped, but even so Iroh could see the edges were inflamed. It hurt like hell, but in his weakened state he was a lot more worried about infection. He might have avoided having to sit in his own piss, but it wasn’t like anyone had been bothering to keep him clean. The fact that he’d had nothing to eat since before the battle almost certainly wasn’t helping his immune response, either.

Well, one thing at a time. 

Finally, Iroh closed his eyes. He started taking slow, deep breaths, relaxing his muscles, attempting to clear his mind. It was almost impossible in his current circumstances, but he did as best he could. When he felt he was ready, he started focusing on the fire inside him, pulling on the energies that ran through his body, gathering them together with increasing tension. Firebending didn’t always require such deep concentration, but like anything else it got harder the more tired and hurt you were, and Iroh was determined to take this slow. He carefully focused the energy he’d pooled in the center of his chest, then gave it a kind of _push_ into his right hand. His palm filled with flickering yellow and white flames.

For the first time in days, Iroh smiled. It wasn’t his hottest flame, but used well it was more than enough to burn the building down. 

Next, supplies. He pulled at the mirror, hoping for some kind of medicine cabinet or space beyond, but there was nothing. He had better luck in the two drawers next to the sink. Iroh shook three aspirin out of a small glass jar, thought a moment, then added a fourth before washing them down with more water from the sink. He also found cotton balls and a pair of tweezers. It wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d had a moment ago.

Iroh’s hand was on the knob of the bathroom door before he made himself stop. If the woman came back to find him searching her room, she’d attack for sure. He might be in better shape than he could have hoped, but he doubted he could take her in a straight fight. As much as the room and its contents tempted him, taking care of his injuries was a better use of time. It’d do him no good to escape the Equalists just to die of infection.

He took two more long drinks from the sink, then stepped out of his pants and shorts. Iroh didn’t give two shits how he smelled, but taking the shower he was supposed to be taking was actually a good idea, medically. He kept the water warm, barely above room temperature, and after a minute of simply enjoying the experience he slowly began to wash. The soapy water stung and his arms ached, but Iroh kept at it, making sure to clean everything thoroughly. It was tiring standing for so long, but he made himself take his time, taking breaks to sit on the floor when it got to be too much. He expected the woman to burst back in at any moment, demanding that he hurry up, but amazingly no one came.

After the shower, Iroh did his best to tend the worst of his injuries. There wasn’t much he could do besides keep them clean and dry, but he used the tweezers to remove any dead skin and, in one instance, a small piece of his shirt. For the burn, he unrolled a few of the cotton balls, then tore a long strip of fabric from the cuff of one of his pant legs to wrap it up as best he could. Then he pulled on his shorts, picked up the tweezers, and pressed his ear to the door.

A long minute later, he cracked it open. The room beyond was still empty. It was small and drab, and clearly only meant as sleeping rather than living quarters. There was a narrow bed against the far wall opposite a low wooden dresser, one window that didn't appear to open, and that was about it. Yet for all its sparseness, it was clearly a woman’s room. Iroh could smell faint perfume, the same scent that had given the woman’s trick away earlier. A few bottles and other cosmetics littered the top of the desk. The bed had been dressed with a bright yellow comforter, and the fat white pillow was rather frilly. A rack of clothing hung in one corner above a messy pile of women’s shoes. 

Iroh glanced at the locked door to his left. It was metal, and the woman had said there were guards, but still... Then he shook his head. He was too tired, too weak. It would be suicide, and he knew it. Instead, he took his time searching the room, hoping that if the woman did come back and find him he could at least hold her off. But there was comparatively little there—perhaps his captor hadn’t been long in residence. He added a pair of nylons to his collection of improvised weapons, but that was all. Then his eyes fell again on the bed. 

It had been a long, long time since Iroh had slept. His thirst finally quenched, and the aspirin and warm water beginning to dull his pain, exhaustion was quickly overtaking him. His eyes itched, and suddenly despite his immediate danger he found he could barely keep them open.

Iroh walked over to the little bed as if pulled by an invisible wire. It was so soft, the mattress old and worn. The fluffy yellow comforter felt cool and light as he pulled it up over his hot skin. The fat pillow cradled his head perfectly. It smelled wonderful.

Iroh’s last thought before drifting off was that if the woman killed him for this, it just might be worth it.


	8. New Rules

_Okay,_ Asami thought. She pressed her back against the door, her heart racing. _So he’s REALLY not where you expected him to be. You can take him. Just rush in and zap him. He’ll be groggy._ With one shaking hand she popped open the back panel of her electric glove, twisting the small dial so it would deliver a shock that would knock a grown man out cold. Not lethal, but close. Then she snapped it closed. _Come on. You’ve got this._

It was a terrible plan, deep down she knew that, but what else was she supposed to do? She’d been taught to fight benders, of course, and firebenders most of all. That wasn’t the problem. But her training was meant to counter their fighting style, to duck and weave and avoid burns, not prevent her surroundings from catching on fire. Iroh had been docile enough earlier, but if she surprised him, or he woke up disoriented, there was no way she could both subdue him and put out the blaze. Old as it was, the entire facility could go up in flames in minutes. 

Even worse, the whole idea of cleaning him up now seemed incredibly reckless. When she’d first taken Iroh out of the cell, it had felt safe enough. He’d been injured from the battle even before the interrogation started, and Asami knew the general was nearly at the end of his endurance. In addition to the shocks and beatings, he’d had no food or water for more than two days. His skin was feverish and hot to the touch, and he had followed her instructions with a heavy, dull compliance. It had taken almost all her strength just to half walk, half carry him the short distance to her quarters. By the time they’d gotten there he’d barely seemed conscious. Despite the searching look he’d given her at the end and his quiet word of thanks, Asami had left with the impression Iroh was almost too weak to stand. She’d been sure that he’d still be in the bathroom, either too tired or too scared to come out. To find that the general had not only left, but had had the audacity to sleep in her bed, was a show of confidence that had rattled her more than she wanted to admit.

Asami took a deep breath, then turned to face the door. She rested her left hand on the lock again, holding her glove at the ready. She had no choice. Just rush in, and—

“Ah,” said a cold voice. Asami jerked and spun, gloved hand cracking with blue-white light. Her eyes flicked up to meet an icy blue stare above two long, drooping mustaches. He danced just out of reach. “Jumpy tonight.” 

“Hello, Lieutenant,” Asami said, trying to keep her voice casual. “You startled me, that’s all.” Spirits, she hadn’t even heard him coming. How long had he been standing behind her, watching her watch her own door?

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “You’ve been speaking with the prisoner?”

Asami nodded, careful to keep her face neutral. “I just got back.”

“And still no information?”

“No.”

The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing. Amon’s second-in-command didn’t have a name. Or rather, not a name he had ever cared to share. He’d always simply been “the lieutenant.” Asami secretly thought it was because his name was something ridiculous and embarrassing, and had eventually settled on calling him Cornival in her head. She was very, very careful never to call him this to his face, nor to anyone else. Tall and meaty, he’d supposedly been an underground Kali ring-fighter before throwing in with Amon. She had no idea if this was true or not, but either way, Cornival did not have much of a sense of humor.

The lieutenant reached behind him and pulled out one of the long fighting sticks he kept stored in a small backpack. It was about half the length of Asami’s arm and, like her glove, had been electrified as a way to combat benders. 

“It’s not working,” he said. “Your father is busy. I understand you have the same skills. You will fix it.”

“I was kind of in the middle of something.”

Cornival gave her a curt shake of his head, his long catfish whiskers flopping against his thin jaw. “This is more important.”

“But—”

The lieutenant loomed over her. “That. Was an order.”

Asami tensed. Men like Cornival scared her. There was no feeling in his pale face, none. He’d threatened her with the same expression he might use when eating a sandwich. 

“Got it,” she said. There was no choice. She’d have to deal with Iroh later.

Suddenly the lieutenant braced one hand against the door, his palm flat beside her head. Asami flinched away. “I don’t think you do,” he said. He leaned in, so close she could smell his stale breath. “I don’t trust you, Sato. I don’t care who your father is. Don’t ever make me ask for something twice.”

“Yes.” Asami tried not to let her voice shake. 

“Yes, what?”

 _Yes, you psychotic se tu United Forces wannabe._ “Yes, sir.”

***

It took her three hours to fix Cornival’s stupid stick, then another forty minutes to find him and give it back. By the time Asami neared her room again, she was sweating. The whole time she’d been half listening for some kind of alarm. Would Iroh set the building on fire, just on general principle? Would he try to burn his way out through the drywall? Could he pick locks? Spirits, could he _melt_ locks? And if he somehow had gotten out, what would it mean? Amon’s right-hand clearly neither liked nor trusted her. If she’d let a top prisoner escape, and gotten nothing out of him besides… she really had no idea what Amon himself would do. Would anyone believe she hadn’t been in on it?

Yet when she rounded the corner of the hallway that led to her room, her door was undisturbed. Asami crept carefully back, her glove already primed and ready, and placed her ear to the metal. Still nothing. That didn’t mean the general was still asleep, but at least it seemed he wasn’t on the loose. For some reason, the idea made her more nervous. If he was definitely still in her room, there was no avoiding a confrontation.

 _All right,_ she thought. _Get it over with._

As quietly as she could, Asami undid the lock. Then she pushed open the door, her glove in front to meet the oncoming assault. 

Iroh’s heavy breathing sounded from the bed. He didn’t appear to have moved at all. The comforter moved gently up and down. Asami felt her fear ratchet up a notch as she softly closed the door behind her. She never took her eyes off the general’s sleeping form. Instead she crept closer, placing each foot carefully on the soft carpet. He didn’t stir. 

One quiet step, then another. Iroh’s breathing never changed. His bruised and swollen face seemed relaxed in sleep, a little smile playing at the corners of his lips as if he were in the midst of a sweet dream. Asami thought the expression suited him, softening the hard angles of his cheeks and jaw into something that was nearly pleasant. It was almost enough to make her forget that he was a bender, a monster, the same kind of monster who had murdered her mother in cold blood for a handful of metal and rocks. 

Almost.

Asami pounced. Iroh’s eyes flew open before she’d moved half a step. She instinctively twisted, ten years of self-defense kicking in without so much as a conscious thought as she realized her mistake. Glittering tweezers buried themselves deep in the meat of her left shoulder as Iroh sprang up from the bed. Asami gasped, then struck out with her glove. The general caught her wrist in mid-air and twisted hard. Something cracked and her arm exploded in agony. Asami howled, as much in fear and rage as in pain, then kicked out with her legs. They connected with Iroh’s bare stomach as he toppled her over onto the carpet. He let out a yell of his own, but his grip on her wrist never loosened. 

Iroh pinned her to the floor with a grunt of pain and Asami felt the wind rush out of her. He lay completely on top of her, his left hand still clamped to her broken right wrist like a vise. She twisted and squirmed, desperately trying to suck in a breath, but no matter how she moved she couldn’t dislodge him. She’d never have believed he was so strong, not in the condition he was in. Her whole arm was on fire, her shoulder was on fire, the pain so bright it threatened to drown out the whole world. Slowly, the edges of her vision began to blur.

Iroh stared down at her, his strange gold eyes shining in triumph. He gasped slightly, his breath hot on her face. “New,” he panted, “rules.”


	9. Another Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: References to animal abuse

When Iroh was seven his mother took him to pick out a family pet, just the two of them. He’d been petitioning her for more than a year, slowly and methodically building the case that he was old enough and responsible enough to help care for one. The young prince might have been quiet, but he was also persistent, and met each of the Firelord’s objections not with words but with clear demonstrations to the contrary. Finally, either out of arguments or simply tired of his pestering, she’d given in.

The shelter they’d gone to in the capital had had all manner of beasts, from tiny canary hamsters to an enormous old arctic tortoise. For once Iroh’s mother had hung back, letting her son study his options while she chatted with one of the staff. Iroh had walked up and down each row, careful to look at every animal up for adoption. He took his time. 

In the very last cage in the back he found a medium-sized dog. It was a soft gray, with a white nose and chest and pointy black ears that flopped forward, rather like his own unruly hair. It was thin, far too thin, but had the build of an animal that, when properly cared for, would be strong and heavily muscled. Iroh thought it was magnificent, all solid and sleek like a furry torpedo, but when he slowly put his hand out the dog lunged forward, snapping. Its pale eyes flashed as it retreated, tail between its legs, a low growl rumbling deep in its chest. It was only then that he noticed the long scars along its flanks. Iroh stumbled back, shocked—not that the dog had tried to bite him, but that someone would hurt something so beautiful.

The attendant hurried forward, shooing him away from the cage. “You don’t want that one, my prince,” she said. “That’s a pit fighting dog. They can sometimes be guard dogs if you’ve got a strong hand, but she’ll never be a pet.”

But Iroh had wanted that dog. She was his dog, he knew she was, and she’d be a good dog too once she realized he was nice. He’d liked that she was fierce, and that even caged she didn’t take anyone’s shit. He’d begged and pleaded, an uncharacteristic show of emotion even at that age, but the Firelord was unmoved. Instead they’d left with his mother’s choice, a furry brown cat owl who Iroh had loved faithfully for the next ten years. He’d never forgotten the gray and white dog though, and the way it had looked at him, both expecting to be punished and daring him to try.

The Equalist reminded him a lot of that dog. 

She sat on her knees in front of him, her back to the bed. He’d tied her arms tightly to her sides at the elbow using some of the nylon. The rest he’d used to run a line between her bound ankles and her neck—the implication being if she moved too much, she’d choke herself. Seeing as she couldn’t see behind her, Iroh had been careful to explain the setup. She was no use to him dead.

Up close, the woman looked even younger than he’d thought. She was tall and slender, with delicate features, her skin so light Iroh thought she could pass for Fire Nation if it weren’t for her pale green eyes. Thick, jet-black hair fell halfway down her back in loose waves. She might have even been pretty, but her whole face was twisted with furious hate. Her hard eyes bored into him.

Iroh himself sat cross-legged in front of her in nothing but his undershorts. It wasn’t ideal by any means, but that was how he’d fallen asleep and he didn’t want to take his eyes off her for even the few seconds it would take to retrieve his pants and undershirt from the bathroom. Unlike the woman, Iroh knew how to handle prisoners. As long as he was decent, it would have to do. 

He reached out again. “I just want to—”

“Fuck you!” The woman spat, jerking away from his touch. She couldn’t move much, not tied as she was, but she tried anyway. Her eyes watered in pain, her mouth set in a trembling line.

“—to look at it,” Iroh finished. He was pretty sure he’d broken her arm, which had already begun to swell, but he wouldn’t know how badly if she wouldn’t let him near her. There wasn’t much he could do, but a basic splint would be better than nothing until she could get to a healer. If the Equalists even believed in healers? There was still so much Iroh didn’t know about them. He hadn’t even tried to remove the tweezers still jutting from her left shoulder. Without a way to stop the bleeding, they were probably doing more good where they were.

Iroh took a deep breath, resisting the urge to fidget. He knew he’d only get one shot at escape, and he had to be patient. But one look at the hate-filled expression on the Equalist’s face told him all he needed to know about how cooperative she was going to be. Yet giving her the same brutal treatment she’d given him was out of the question. He couldn’t risk her yelling her head off, and she seemed defiant enough torture might not work at all, or at least not alone. After all, it hadn’t worked on him. 

The fact that she was a girl had nothing to do with it.

He’d simply have to try something else. Iroh rested his elbows on his knees, leaned forward slightly, and met her eyes. “I’m going to say a few things that I believe to be true. Please answer yes or no.” He kept his voice calm and even, trying to appear firm but not threatening. He didn’t expect her to answer, or at least not truthfully, but that wasn’t the point. He wanted to watch her face. 

“I’m not telling you shit, firebender!” She practically hissed at him. 

“Please, call me Iroh,” said Iroh, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And there were never any guards outside the door. You are working alone. No one knows you and I are here.” He gave her a significant look. “I can do what I want with you, and no one will know for hours. Correct?”

The woman’s eyes widened slightly, a clear sign of fear. “No!” she said quickly. “The lieutenant himself sent me, and he’ll be back just as—”

Iroh held up a hand and she cut off, flinching back. He thought of the dog again, the one with all the scars. Spirits, what had happened to her? What had happened to them both? “I said yes or no,” he repeated calmly. “No need to explain.”

He paused, waiting. Finally, she nodded slightly. It seemed his threat had sunk in. “Next, you’re someone important within the Equalist movement.” 

“No,” the woman said. This time she didn’t elaborate. Iroh rewarded this behavior by remaining perfectly still. His movements seemed to scare her, regardless of his intent. The expression that flashed across her face this time was closer to confusion. Interesting. So she wasn’t sure herself? That, combined with the sparseness of the room, could mean she was new. Perhaps her charge of him had simply been a chance to prove herself? Important, but untested. It made sense. Iroh wasn’t quite sure what to do with that yet, so he filed it away. 

“This building looks like a hotel,” he said. “I can see from the window that we are in downtown Republic City. There are multiple exits to the building, and you know where they are and how they are guarded.”

This time she actually twitched. “No.” That would be a yes, then. Good.

“Thank you,” Iroh said. He had what he needed, and at least the outline of a plan. “Now, this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to leave. You are going to help me. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. Is that clear?”

The woman snarled at him. “Like _hell_ I’m going to—”

Iroh’s hand shot out and clamped around her neck, just underneath her chin. He squeezed, not enough to really hurt her, but enough to show her that he could. He could feel her pulse fluttering wildly underneath his hand. He held her there for a long beat. His arm ached, but he didn’t let it waver. Then Iroh hooked his fingers underneath her jaw and drew her face to his. As he did, the nylon noose tied to her ankles pulled tight around her neck.

“I am going to leave,” he repeated, his words slow and deliberate. The woman’s nose was perhaps an inch from his now, her green eyes wide and terrified. Her dark red lips opened and closed like a fish as she struggled to breathe. This close he could smell her, sweat and fear and, just beneath it, the same pleasant scent that had been on her pillow. “And you are going to help me. _Is. That. Clear?”_

Amazingly, she still fought him. Iroh held her there for what felt like a solid minute, his eyes never leaving hers as her face turned from pink to red to purple. It went on so long he began to worry that she would simply let herself choke to death, and was wondering what he would do if she did. Then, she nodded.

Iroh released her with an inward sigh of relief and quickly slid his hand down to loosen the nylon. The woman fell over onto her side, crying out as her right arm hit the floor. Then she just lay there, gasping, tears streaming down her face. Her sobs turned to whimpers of pain as she slowly caught her breath, her wrist cradled against her chest like a broken wing. Iroh thought it was the saddest sound he’d ever heard.

_Fuck._


	10. This is How it's Going to Be

Asami felt a soft touch on her arm and her eyes flew open. The prisoner, Iroh, knelt over her, one hand outstretched. She jerked away from him and fresh pain flared in her arm and shoulder, so much so she bit her lip to keep from crying out. He started to lean closer.

“Don’t touch me!” she tried to shout, but it came out as a strangled whisper. Her throat was dry and raw. Her wrist felt like she’d been stabbed with a hot poker, and in that moment Asami thought she would let Iroh do anything, anything he wanted to her as long as he didn’t hurt her there. It was already so much. But there was nothing she could do, he’d shown her that. She was at his mercy now. If only he would hurt her somewhere else, somewhere new, that might be enough. Enough to get through this.

Iroh didn’t move. His battered face had a kind of pinched look. “Please,” he said quietly. “I think it’s broken.”

_No shit it’s broken you broke it._

He reached out again, his fingers just brushing her arm. Asami tried to wriggle away, but now she’d run up against the bed. There was nowhere to go, and she couldn’t use her legs without strangling herself. She slumped, finally surrendering to a fight she’d already lost. It was over. Next the general would grab her, twisting her arm until she shrieked. Then the burning would begin. He’d said he was going to leave, and he probably would, but not before he’d gotten his revenge. And she deserved it, too. Not because of what she’d done to him—they were both combatants, and that was the cost of war—but because she’d been too weak to win. A lifetime of training, only to be beaten by an injured, starving, essentially unarmed man who hadn’t even used his bending. _You're too soft,_ her father whispered. And he was right.

Asami squeezed her eyes shut, trying to steel herself for the pain. Then she felt Iroh’s fingertips on her forearm. She tensed, but this time didn’t pull away. Where would she go? Yet the agony she’d expected never came. Instead, his touch was tender, the pads of his fingers warm and slightly rough as they tapped lightly across her skin. He didn’t move her arm at all, or even press it much. He only felt it on both sides, prodding gently but methodically from her elbow down toward her hand. Slowly, the pain receded to a dull throb.

When Iroh got to a point just above her wrist though, something moved. There was a sharp, stabbing pain again and Asami sucked in a breath. The general immediately stopped what he was doing.

“Ah.” That was all. A moment later she felt his fingers again, now back at her elbow. He gently pried her arm away from her chest. Then something cool and hard pressed into her skin. Asami finally opened her eyes. Iroh was still kneeling over her, his gaze focused intently on her arm. In one hand he held one of her scarves, a silk one the color of lilacs. The other held in place her wooden drafting ruler. He’d nestled it underneath her forearm so that the end hit just below her fingers. Slowly, carefully, he began to wind the scarf around her arm, mindful to keep the fabric from bunching up, a look of quiet concentration on his face. He made it tight, but not tight enough that it hurt. When he was finished, he tucked the end of the scarf in under her palm.

“There.” He sat back on his heels, apparently satisfied. Asami said nothing. She was too surprised.

Iroh abruptly stood and strode out of her field of vision as she looked away. For some reason he was only in his underwear, his many cuts and bruises stark against the expanse of his pale skin. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her. It wasn’t like she’d never seen a man undressed, or even a firebender for that matter. Nor was she new to injuries. Spirits, she herself had looked nearly as bad when she’d first started training. Yet something about him unsettled her all the same.

Asami heard rummaging sounds from near the foot of her bed. There was a clink of metal, then the sound of tearing fabric. She had no idea what he was doing now. She still lay on her side, and with her feet tied to her throat she had no way to right herself. But she wasn’t going to waste the time. She had to think, and think fast. Iroh had asked her about guards and exits. He was military, clearly smart, and a lot stronger than she’d thought. Asami knew she had already underestimated him considerably. The general wasn’t going to make the same mistake she had, and she’d be surprised if he’d untie her. So, if she was going to avert disaster, she needed help. That was what she had to focus on.

Iroh came back and squatted down in front of her with a wince. He was now dressed in, of all things, the dark gray uniform Asami had been issued when she’d formally joined the revolution. It was obvious it didn’t fit him, not even close, but Iroh was of a somewhat slim build and had managed surprisingly well. He’d had to leave the jacket completely open, but as it buttoned at the side it wasn’t immediately obvious. She caught only a flash of skin as he moved. He’d torn each sleeve along the bottom seam from elbow to armpit in order to accommodate his larger arms and shoulders. The loose-cut pants he’d simply left open at the waist, turning the wide maroon belt slightly to help hide the gap. His own tall black boots were the wrong color, but otherwise more or less fit the outfit. He held the hood and goggles loosely in one hand. The general seemed rather uncomfortable, but at a glance and from a distance he’d look just like everybody else. 

He rested his arms on his knees and met her eye. His face seemed harder now, determined. “Now, here is how this is going to go,” he said evenly. “I’m going to untie your legs. I am not going to untie your arms. I am going to keep a firm hold on the tie around your neck. You are going to tell me the way to the closest, least-guarded exit, then lead me there. Then I will leave.” His face suddenly twisted in disgust. “If you refuse, I kill you. If you try to run or scream along the way, I kill you. If you try deception, and lead me somewhere else, I kill you. Please don’t make me do that. It serves neither of us.”

Asami closed her eyes again. She’d already given so much. She’d given up half her life to training, preparing to both defend herself against bending aggressors and, when the time was right, to be able to take her revenge. She’d forgone pursuing her passion, passing on a formal university education in mechanical engineering because her father needed her to help run his secret programs. She’d given herself to Mako to get close to the Avatar; first her time, then her body, and finally her self-respect when she’d realized she liked it, she liked _him,_ only to be discarded like so much trash on the side of the road as he fell for a bender instead. She’d given her mother, and with Yatsuko had gone her father’s heart as well, replaced with nothing but ash.

Yet she’d always known that the cause might require one final sacrifice. They all knew it, and each Equalist was ready to make it in order to help Amon bring forth a better world for the rest. Asami didn't want that, she wanted to live, but since when did what she want matter? The world was far bigger than one woman's desires, and nobody wanted a failure.

Asami nodded, and Iroh smiled a little. “Good.”

She thought of the hospital, the slow thump and hiss of the breathing mecha as her mother lingered, burning, and how that awful sound had been the last thing she’d ever heard. 

At least this time, it would be quick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always wondered why someone as brilliant as Asami wasn't still in school, and why she was so good at hand-to-hand combat.


	11. Death of a Firebender

Asami led them down yet another a dim hallway, their boots whispering softly against the carpet. True to his word, Iroh had unbound her legs, and now held the end of the nylon around her neck tightly in his right fist. He kept close, so close his arm kept brushing hers as they walked. Clearly he was taking no chances and wanted to be able to grab her if necessary. Asami could hardly blame him for that. It’s what she should have done. At least her electric glove hadn’t fit him. Thank the spirits Iroh had big hands.

“So far?” His voice came out low and slightly muffled. He’d donned her hood and goggles before leaving the room and now looked more or less like anyone at headquarters coming in from outside. Asami was surprised by how much the change troubled her. Not because she mourned the loss of her outfit, but because of how expressive Iroh’s face was. Once under the mask she’d realized he actually said very little. It reminded her of what the Avatar had said of icebergs: what you could see from a ship was only 10% of what was there under the surface. Unfortunately, it was the hidden part that sank you.

“Going around back,” she whispered. He’d already asked about numbers of guards. Asami had said two. One wouldn’t be believable, but any more than two and she wondered if the general would change his mind. He had surprise on his side, or thought he did, but he was smart enough to know there would be others close by. It wasn’t enough to win; he had to take them out fast and quiet.

Them, and her. 

Asami wasn’t stupid. She was Iroh’s biggest liability, and it was no accident he’d kept the pantyhose around her neck. Promises or no, his best move was to silence her as soon as he spotted the exit. Hopefully he didn’t realize that she knew that. There were advantages to looking the way she did. A lot of people underestimated her.

They continued to move quickly through the building, the only sound Iroh’s snuffled breathing through his broken nose. Asami made sure to stick to unused corridors; she couldn’t afford to run into anyone. It wasn’t until they hit the stairs that they hit a problem. For the first time, Iroh seemed to show signs of his injuries. He slowed considerably, each step accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. It was bad enough Asami began to wonder what would happen to her neck if he stumbled and fell. 

“Here,” she muttered. She moved down to the step in front of him and offered him her good shoulder. After asking her permission—another surprise—Iroh had pulled out the tweezers he’d stabbed her with, then stuffed the wound with an extra sock, but that side still hurt too much to carry any weight.

“Thank you.” Asami felt his hand press down hard. She waited a beat, then started moving. Iroh lurched after her, each step eliciting a grunt of pain.

 _So he_ is _human._ There was something comforting in that. Asami had been shocked at how strong he’d been earlier given his treatment; so much so she’d begun to wonder if she’d missed something. In retrospect, it had probably only been adrenaline and stubborn grit. Now that the fight was over, it seemed like things were catching up with him.

Asami looked down at her own bandaged arm. It still hurt, and the swelling was uncomfortable, but with the rudimentary splint to keep it from moving the pain was more than manageable. Yet if anything would give them away, it was probably that. Anyone would know it for an injury, and the odd color of the “bandage” only attracted attention. Asami could have walked with a broken wrist under her sleeve and no one would be the wiser. So why had he insisted on treating it?

By the time they reached the ground floor Iroh was breathing hard. He moved his warm hand from her shoulder and took a few hesitant steps, now clearly favoring his left side. Exactly how hurt was he? It certainly seemed like he was slowing down. What if he had internal injuries of some kind? Nothing the Equalists had here could treat anything that serious as far as she knew. Without a healing center, it would mean a slow and painful death. Which was more or less what was going to happen to the general regardless. That had always been the plan. Asami looked away.

“Keep moving,” he growled.

She turned right into another hallway and took a few steps. She felt, rather than saw, Iroh hesitate. 

“Are you sure?” he whispered. Shit, he probably had a good sense of direction. It must be his military training.

“Loading dock,” Asami answered. That was a complete lie, of course, but it seemed to mollify the general. He visibly relaxed and they kept walking. 

She looked down at her splinted arm again. Why had he done that? 

Asami had beaten him, tortured him. She had almost killed him. She’d wanted to kill him. She _did_ want to kill him, kill him and everyone like him for what they’d done to the world, to her world. 

Didn’t she?

 _Please,_ Iroh whispered in her mind. _I think it’s broken._

Asami kept walking. She turned another corner, then slowed as she heard the faint rumble of conversation. Iroh froze. 

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Where is this?”

 _Spirits help me,_ Asami thought. _Spirits help us all._ Then she took a deep breath, threw back her head, and shrieked as loudly as she could. 

It all happened fast. Instead of yanking on the cord around her neck Iroh shoved her, knocking her hard into the side of the hallway. Then he took off running. A second later three figures burst out of the green double doors that led to the room the Equalists now used as a cafeteria. They took one look at her, then turned and started running after Iroh. 

“Hey!” one of them shouted. “Hey, you!” The general never slowed. Instead, he hit the T junction at the end of the hallway and, without any hesitation, turned right.

It was his undoing.

It had been obvious to her that General Iroh was right-handed. And Asami knew from her training that, all else equal, when faced with a choice of direction most people will turn the direction of their dominant hand. It was a calculated gamble, but as more shouts sounded in the distance it appeared to be one that had paid off.

Asami stumbled, but somehow managed to both keep her balance and avoid bumping her broken arm. Then she sagged against the wall, just breathing, hardly believing that she could. She’d been convinced that Iroh would kill her on the spot. He’d told her he would, and even if he hadn’t it was the most logical move. Slowly she reached up and removed the nylon noose from around her neck. For a moment she just stared at it. 

_Please don’t make me do that. It serves neither of us._

More shouts sounded from the direction the general had gone, followed by a crash. Asami shook her head, then ran after the others.

***

She found them in what had been the old hotel’s lobby. Four white pillars soared up to the mezzanine above a wide floor of green and white tile. To the right, a second set of double doors opened onto the other side of the cafeteria. Which, of course, is why she’d led them this way. Her shouts echoing in the narrow hallway would have sent any people inside running to both exits, thus cutting off escape.

General Iroh stood in the center of the floor in a fighting stance, surrounded by Equalists. There were perhaps a dozen of them, presumably the three who had chased him down the hallway and whomever else had been at dinner. They ringed him like a pack of hyena jaguars, fists raised and electric weapons unsheathed, poised to strike.

Suddenly Iroh dropped his stance. He straightened and squared his shoulders. Then he tore off his hood, throwing it to the ground. 

“Let me pass,” he commanded. 

He didn’t shout; he didn’t have to. His tone was one of absolute authority. For a moment, everything stopped. Iroh stood there in the center of the lobby, tall and proud, and in that second he wasn’t beaten or broken at all. He was the general of the United Forces, the man who would be Firelord, every inch of him demanding respect and swift obedience. 

“Let me pass,” he repeated. His voice was like iron. It wasn’t an ask; it was an order. A few of the Equalists took a hesitant step back. 

“Take him!” someone shouted. Asami looked up to see Cornival running down the stairs from the mezzanine, his long mustaches flapping. The spell broke.

Iroh ducked into a crouch and his face contorted in pain. Then the room exploded into fire. 

Asami pressed herself against the wall, stunned. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen. She’d spent years studying firebenders, going to pro-bending matches to learn tactics, sparring with opponents who had no idea of her true motivations. She’d watched the Avatar herself in action, not to mention Mako, who two years ago had been the best rookie in the league. But none of that compared to what Iroh was doing.

The general moved in and out of each bending form with liquid grace. White-hot jets of fire so thick and straight they seemed nearly solid flew from his fists and feet in a dizzying blur. The fire was so bright it was hard to look at, and Asami found herself shielding her eyes against the searing flames. Iroh seemed everywhere at once, constantly moving and spinning, fending off more than a dozen fighters with what looked like practiced ease. As Asami watched from the hallway she didn’t see one strike land against him. It seemed impossible that the terrifying maelstrom of fire she saw before her now was the same man who had leaned on her only a few minutes before, muttering a quiet word of thanks. Yet it was.

One by one her companions fell, flung into walls and doors and curtains by the power of his blasts. Slowly, one step at a time, she saw Iroh back towards the front door of the building. First twenty feet away, then ten. Somewhere deep within the building, an alarm sounded. 

“Stop!” The voice, cold and commanding, cut through the chaos like a knife.

Asami whipped around, already knowing what she’d see. Amon himself appeared upon the balcony above the lobby. His pale mask stood out starkly against the dark of his gray hood. Tall and thin, and unnaturally still, he had always reminded her a little of a corpse. 

Iroh whirled. Asami saw his eyes widen a little. Then he threw his arm back as if pulling a bowstring, his fingers pointing straight at the balcony.

“I said, _stop.”_ Amon held out one hand, his palm facing Iroh.

And Iroh fell. 

He landed hard on his knees and she saw him grimace in pain. Two of the fallen men scrambled up and grabbed him by either shoulder, but something wasn’t right. Asami knew how strong he was, even now—there was no way he could be restrained so easily. She saw Iroh struggle, but his motions were slow. It was like he was suddenly moving through wet concrete instead of only air. 

“General Iroh,” Amon said. His voice carried perfectly in the near silent room. The only other sound was the distant alarm and the soft crackle of flames. “Finally we meet.”

 _“Fuck,”_ Iroh growled. He didn’t seem to be able to say more. Thick cords stood out on his neck as he bared his teeth in defiance. Asami saw a single drop of sweat trail down from his temple, his face slowly reddening with effort. Yet he barely moved. She’d never seen anything like it.

Amon slowly made his way down the stairs to the floor of the lobby. “The only thing bending has brought to the world is suffering,” he said as he walked. His eyes never left Iroh. “It has been the cause of every war, and every war’s most deadly instrument. Especially fire, which has but one purpose: to destroy.”

The lieutenant got to his feet and took up a position next to Amon as he gained the lobby floor. One of his catfish mustaches had been burned away.

Amon now turned to address the rest of the Equalists, who one by one were either reviving or helping others who were more injured. Asami felt she should go to them, but something rooted her to the spot. 

“I myself have been scarred by fire," Amon continued. It was a familiar story, and one which Asami never failed to feel echoed in her own heart. "A firebender took my family, just before he took my face.” He reached up and traced a finger down the side of his mask. “And fire is still what they send against me. General Iroh, Prince of the Fire Nation, has come to kill me himself. And with my death, to restore tyranny to Republic City.”

Asami started. That was far from true. While General Iroh had been in command of the United Forces fleet, it had been, well, a fleet. Seven warships. Hundreds of men and women. They might have had older mecha than what Future Industries had developed, but still. Amon made it sound like Iroh was some kind of spy, or maybe a champion, sent in alone to assassinate him. But she knew he’d been taken while unconscious and injured. Spirits, anyone who had just witnessed this fight would know it would be nearly impossible to take him in a fair fight. It was also obvious, at least to her, that he’d been on his way out. 

Amon looked down at Iroh, who despite being on his knees still glared back at him in challenge. “Look at you,” he said. His voice was almost pitying now. “You sit upon a fortune, just as soon you will sit upon a throne. And yet your whole life has been war. You are not a man at all; merely a weapon of oppression. I will free you. I will give you peace.”

 _“No,”_ Iroh spat through gritted teeth.

Amon pressed his thumb firmly to the struggling general’s forehead. For a heartbeat nothing happened. Then Iroh screamed. His whole body went rigid and his head whipped back, as if Amon’s touch was a burning brand. Then he slumped forward. The two men holding him let go and he collapsed to the floor, motionless.

Amon looked down at him for a long moment, then turned to Cornival. He whispered a few words to the lieutenant, then swept back up the stairs to the mezzanine. A moment later others began to appear from deeper inside the building, apparently in response to the alarm. They all gave Iroh, Cornival, and the other fighters a wide berth. 

Asami coughed, startling her out of her daze. The room was slowly filling with thick black smoke. Something inside the cafeteria had caught fire, as had the long, olive-colored drapes that framed the front windows. A large hole in one of the walls was also smoking—and old drywall like this would go up like tinder. 

She jogged forward to where the lieutenant was talking to two other men. “Sir,” she said. “The prisoner, he attacked me. Thank you for helping recapture him.” 

Cornival only glared at her. His eyes dropped down to her lavender arm and lingered significantly. “I will deal with you later, Sato,” he said, his voice low and hard. “We have more important priorities at the moment.”

Asami’s eyes flicked to Iroh’s motionless form on the tile. The alarm wailed in the distance.

“Leave him,” said the lieutenant. “We need to evacuate. There is no time for prisoners now. The general made his choice, and so must we.”


	12. Inferno

Iroh opened his eyes to an inferno. Flames flickered and swirled all around him, orange and white, interspersed with areas of deep shadow under a roiling cloud of smoke. The air felt heavy and hot, almost solid. He blinked, his eyes stinging, completely lost. His first distracted thought was that he’d died and returned to the Dragonbone Catacombs to rest in the eternal torchlight, just another royal ghost among the darkened tombs. His second was that it was wrong, all wrong, the fire was supposed to be _inside him,_ so what was it doing all over the room? Iroh had never felt so empty, so cold despite the oppressive heat. He reached towards the fire instinctively, desperately, his palm outstretched, as if somehow he could grab a hold of one of the long tongues of flame and curl it back inside his chest.

A section of the ceiling collapsed, hitting the tile in a thunderous shower of sparks and broken beams. Iroh jerked his hand back in surprise, sucking in a burning breath that set him coughing. A shock of white hot pain lanced through him at the motion and he cried out. He curled on his side, eyes watering, one hand gripping a point just below his left armpit as he took short, shallow breaths. It felt like he was being stabbed from the inside out. 

_All right,_ he thought, his teeth clenched against the pain. _Not dead, Iroh. Not yet._ Slowly his mind cleared, helped along by the agony in what he realized must be a badly broken rib. He wasn’t in the catacombs. He was in an Equalist facility, a facility that he’d apparently set spectacularly on fire. Flames billowed out from a large room to his left, soaring twenty feet or more to the ceiling. An alarm sounded faintly in the distance. The far wall was a curtain of gold and orange fire. Beyond that, Iroh couldn’t see anything besides a deep red glow shrouded in thick black smoke. It was already making him dizzy. He suspected that if he hadn’t collapsed to the floor, underneath the worst of the smoke, he may not have woken up at all.

Iroh turned his head and was surprised to see that he wasn’t all that far from a large set of golden double doors. He’d been backing towards them during the fight, hoping based on the layout that it was the old hotel’s original entrance. If he was right and that was an exit, all he had to do was get up and leave. Of the Equalists there was no sign at all. It seemed obvious that they’d abandoned the building for lost, and him with it.

At the thought of the Equalists an image flashed across his mind; a pale mask with cold blue eyes, a thin hand outstretched. A feeling like ice, ice in his very blood, pinning him down, freezing him solid. Then that terrible _tearing_ sensation... Iroh shuddered, shoving away the memory and all thoughts of what it might mean. He had more immediate problems. If he couldn’t move, and fast, none of it would matter anyway. He slowly lifted his head and focused on the doors. Ten paces, maybe less. One thing at a time. 

Iroh twisted slightly and braced his palm against the tile, attempting to push himself up onto one hip. His body screamed in pain. It felt like it was everywhere, not just in his ribs but coursing through him like lightning. He collapsed back to the floor, doubling up in a vain attempt to keep the movement from tearing at his insides. Then he just lay there, silent tears rolling down his cheek. It hurt too much. He knew he’d pushed himself in that final fight, pushed himself as hard as he could in one last desperate attempt at escape. It seemed he’d given it all he had. 

_No!_ Something inside him roared. Iroh tried to lift himself again, coughing raggedly in the smoke-filled air. His vision began to swim and he fell back on his side with a groan. His left hand scrabbled at the tile, but his fingers found no purchase against the slick surface. Panic raced through him and he kicked out with his bottom leg, trying to bend, thinking maybe he could somehow propel himself across the floor with his fire. Nothing happened. Iroh reached again for the energies inside him, their warm and pulsing comfort, and felt only darkness. 

He was alone. 

He reached his hand out towards the door again, but all he managed was to spread his fingers wide. He had no strength now. Nothing left. Iroh rested his cheek against the rapidly warming tile and closed his eyes. There was no way he could get out in time. It was over.

 _Fitting,_ he thought vaguely. He heard what sounded like another section of ceiling collapsing. _Fitting that it’s fire._

He felt the ground shake slightly. There was a low mechanical whine. Iroh tried to turn his head to look, but he was now too dizzy and weak to manage even that. Suddenly something hard pushed against his back, then slid underneath him. The movement pressed against something broken inside him and the world went white. Iroh shrieked, but all that came out was a weak, choking cough. Then blackness took him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is kinda short but I wanted to capture Iroh's perspective before the poor guy passed out again.


	13. The Price of Safety

Asami rolled the mecha tank to a stop deep inside Hangar 3. She twisted the cockpit around and surveyed the darkened building for what had to be the third or fourth time. Nothing moved. Machinery loomed at her out of the blue-black gloom, still and silent as the dead. No one had been in this facility for weeks probably, not since the last of the finished aircraft had been moved to Hangar 2 up in the mountains. With the United Forces blockade and a shortage of aluminum, there was no reason to think they’d be back any time soon, either. Asami let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. She was alone.

Kind of.

She glanced down. General Iroh’s body hung limply from the mecha tank’s two enormous metal arms. He wasn’t moving. In fact, he hadn’t so much as twitched since she’d picked him up from the floor of the burning lobby. Asami hadn’t let herself think about that, about any of it, instead focusing on a clear, step-by-step approach that didn’t _allow_ herself to think. Get the tank. Get the man. Think of a safe place to go and then get there, too. Now she realized she was at the end of her to-do list. Here she was. And so was he.

 _Asami, what have you done? And why are you still doing it?_

She shoved the uncomfortable thought aside, instead trying her hardest to craft a new list. Now was not the time for thinking. _The general made his choice, and so must we,_ the lieutenant had said, and it seemed she’d made a choice as well, at least for the time being. Her job now was to deal with the consequences. Questioning that choice served no purpose. 

Asami opened the cockpit with a soft hiss and slid to the floor, careful to press her injured arm close to her chest. Then she made her way cautiously over to Iroh’s body. She forced herself to keep moving, unsure of what she was going to find or even what she wanted to. The general only hung there, head down, one arm dangling. He looked like a broken toy. Something twisted in Asami’s chest. It was… sad, somehow, in a way she didn’t completely understand. For some reason she thought of the time she’d seen a brand new racing sato crash on the test track. All of that potential, that beautiful power, gone to waste in an instant.

She had to be sure though. Asami pressed two shaking fingers to Iroh’s neck, feeling for a pulse the way her instructor had taught her. Nothing. His skin was clammy and cold. She jerked her hand away, her stomach in her throat. He couldn’t be dead, that’s not what Amon’s bending cures did, and anyway she’d gone back for him, she’d gone back because she couldn’t just _leave_ him there on the floor like a crushed paper cup, helpless, that’s not what you did no matter what Cornival said. Iroh was her responsibility, her—

There was a low groaning sound and Asami jumped. She made herself reach out and feel for a pulse again, her heart thudding in her chest, but everything was so much harder with her left hand. After a moment of fumbling at his neck she gave up. She could hear him breathing now, low and shallow but clearly there. The general was still alive.

 _Now what?_ Asami lightly brushed the hair on the back of his neck, but he didn’t move. She really hadn’t thought this through. She couldn’t go to her people, not with Iroh in tow. She couldn’t even explain to herself what she was doing with him, let alone to someone like Cornival or, spirits forbid, her father. That’s why she’d come to Hangar 3 in the first place instead of the lieutenant’s rendezvous point back in the tunnels, wasn’t it? It wasn’t much, but it was a place to be while she figured out what to do next. But spirits, what the hell was next?

There was a shuffling sound behind her. Asami spun, her one good hand raised even as her wounded shoulder twinged. She realized too late that she had no glove, no weapon of any kind besides the mecha tank itself, and that wasn’t all that much use with Iroh still clasped firmly in its arms. 

There was nothing there. Or at least, nothing obvious. Instead, Asami found herself facing a single closed door set into the back wall of the hangar. She recognized it, of course. It was one of the reasons she’d come. A select team of loyal crew at Future Industries had been working around the clock to finish the aircraft in advance of the United Forces’ invasion, and as such her father had outfitted a small living quarters inside what had used to be a back office. Asami had all but lived here in the weeks leading up to the invasion in-between her play-acting with Mako and the Avatar, supervising the frenzied production. It was as good a place as any to lie low and think.

Except it seemed like someone else may have had the same idea.

Slowly Asami crept towards the door. She didn’t see a light, but with the mecha line working at all hours her father had done his best to seal the room. She stopped in front of it, half convinced she’d made it up when the sound repeated. It was definitely coming from inside the room. 

Asami looked around frantically for a weapon, anything at all, but all of the small loose items had long ago been packed up and moved. She briefly considered one of the chairs, but here was no way she could wield it one-handed. Instead she raised her left fist again, knowing it was a joke but out of options. She was good hand-to-hand, but there was no way she could fight someone with one broken arm and a hole in her shoulder. She’d been so sure they were alone! 

Asami took a deep breath and rested her hand on the doorknob. Maybe she was over-reacting. Only the Equalists knew about the aircraft hangars. She’d seen herself how the Avatar’s friends had infiltrated their first base, the one in the tunnels underneath the city; how they’d practically leveled the place with their bending. Surely if they knew about this place, the only place that could actually make more airplanes, it would have been a smoking ruin by now. Whoever was in that room was probably an ally. 

She looked back at the motionless Iroh. Something caught her eye in the dim light. Three drops of blood now glistened on the concrete beneath the arms of the mecha tank. Asami stiffened. He hadn’t been bleeding like that before, not since he’d taken the shower and cleaned himself up a bit. 

Ally was such a complicated word.

 _It would be so much easier if you died,_ she thought bitterly. _Throw you in the furnace, meet up with that asshole Cornival and take whatever punishment I get for the fire, and move on. Pretend I never saw you. Pretend I never…_ Never what? Asami pushed the thought away, confused and angry at the same time. Everything that had happened had been Iroh’s fault, _her_ fault. His escape, her broken arm, the loss of the Equalist’s second headquarters in as many months, it had all been because she’d been too weak to handle her job, and too arrogant to believe the rules applied to her. Asami Sato, always so _smart,_ letting a world-class firebender out of his cell so he could take a _shower—_

Iroh coughed weakly. A few more drops of blood hit the floor.

 _Please,_ he whispered again in her mind. The words were the same, and yet somehow they weren’t. _I think it’s broken._

Abruptly Asami stalked towards the door. Hangar 3 was a Future Industries factory first, whatever the Equalists had made of it. _Her_ factory, just as the general was _her_ general. No one was going to tell her what to do here. Nevermind that she had no weapon, nothing but her own self-imposed authority. On Future Industries property she owed no one an explanation. She was Asami Sato, she needed that room, and she’d be damned if anyone but her father himself was going to make her leave. 

She yanked the door open. 

There were two men in the room. The first sat on the bed, his arms bound at his sides over a dirty blue suit. He was tall and broad, with the deep hazel skin of the Water Tribes. Long dark hair hung lank around his face. Asami thought he looked vaguely familiar. The second man stood with his back to her, his attention on something he’d set on the desk against the far wall. 

The bound man’s terrified gaze flicked to the door. His mouth dropped open as the other man whirled. 

Her heart stopped. The second man was Amon. 

Her angry words of challenge died on her lips. Asami’s mind reeled. Amon… here… and who was this other prisoner? Why weren’t they with the others? And so it was that it took her a moment to realize what else was terribly wrong. 

Amon wasn’t wearing a mask. And his face. Her eyes widened in shock. His face, Amon’s _face._ It was… just a face. Smooth, dusky skin. He appeared to be in his mid-40s, with long, sharp features and the same watery blue eyes of the man on the bed.

 _But the firebender?_ Asami’s mind raced. _The firebender who took his face? Where are the scars?_

Yet she knew it was him, knew it instinctively. It wasn’t just the man’s height and build, or that Amon had been wearing the same outfit an hour ago, a cut of uniform only he seemed to possess. There was a presence about him, there always had been, a magnetic energy she felt every time Amon walked into a room. Asami felt it now, a kind of thrumming in the air that pulled at her. She’d always thought it was excitement for the cause, or perhaps the energy of the crowds that he inspired, but all of a sudden she wasn’t so sure. Alone in the empty factory, something about it felt wrong. And his face, oh spirits why wasn’t anything wrong with his face?

Without a word, Amon attacked. He reached out a hand, and suddenly Asami’s body felt flooded with ice water. Numbing cold shot through her veins, the kind of cold so deep it hurts, it hurts, _it_ _hurts_ and all of a sudden she was screaming as her muscles cramped and seized. She felt herself being pushed backwards, dragged through the air by her own insides. Asami struggled, terrified, but nothing happened. She felt frozen solid.

“What are you doing here?” Amon hissed. Any doubts she may have had about his identity fell away. It was his voice, slow and measured, smooth as engine oil. He took a step towards her, then another, his cold eyes never leaving hers. Asami tried to move again, to back away, but she couldn’t move a muscle. Everything was pain. She wanted to shout that she didn’t know, to say whatever Amon wanted if only he would make it stop, but her jaw had locked tight. It felt like her very blood had frozen solid.

Blood. Suddenly everything clicked into place. Her frozen muscles. The feeling of power she felt, they all felt, in Amon's presence. The way a man as strong as General Iroh had simply fallen to his knees. The bending cures, all of it. Asami should have seen it sooner. She'd studied benders her whole life. The way he moved his hands, it looked just like Korra’s waterbending.

Amon was a bloodbender. Asami had no idea how he could do the things he did, but he was clearly a bloodbender nonetheless. It explained everything. And it made her furious.

Asami saw red. Hot anger pulsed through her. _This_ was the leader of the anti-bending revolution? _This_ was the man who she’d followed, who she and her father had given their lives for? She yanked one shoulder forward, trying to get to him, to tear him to pieces. 

"You!" she spat. That was all. Her throat was as frozen as the rest of her. Amon stopped, apparently surprised. He twisted his hand a little and Asami’s arm exploded in agony. 

“Oh, Asami,” Amon said softly. “I can see you understand. Your father always said you were smart. I’m sorry to find he was correct.” He walked forward until he was just in front of her. He almost seemed to study her, cold, dispassionate, as if she were an insect pinned to a board. Then he smiled a little. It was terrible, that smile. “But all is not lost. I need your father, Asami. And I find him… wavering. He believes in the cause, but he is not built for war. He has grown too comfortable. He misses his mansion, his cigars in the evening. His silk waistcoats and jellied snacks. White tie galas at City Hall. Our new era of equality does not give him those things. The streets must run with blood, and Hiroshi Sato wants champagne.” 

Amon was only a foot from her now. Asami tried to twist, to move away from that awful gaze, but nothing happened. Through the doorway she could see the other man still seated on the bed. She wanted to call out to him, to scream at him to help her, but he only sat there, head bowed. He wouldn’t look at her. That told her everything she needed to know about what was going to happen.

“Even as his obsession deepens, your father seeks another way,” Amon continued. His smile widened, but it never touched his eyes. “But what if Hiroshi’s precious daughter died in that fire? Died at the hands of the General of the United Forces himself, no less? Why, there would be little I could do to stop him from exacting his revenge upon the Republic. At least until I have no further need of him.” He shook his head slightly. “Hopefully it is some small pleasure that your death still serves equality.”

There was a gasping cough behind her and Amon started. Just for a moment, Asami felt her limbs loosen. She hurled herself forward, careening into Amon with her full weight. She slammed her forehead into his face as hard as she could and heard something break. They toppled over, Asami on top, and his head struck the concrete with a sickening crack. The freezing sensation faded entirely. Asami struck out with her good hand, punching Amon hard in the neck. He let out a strangled gasp and reached for her again, but she slapped his hand away easily. He might be bigger than she was, but it was clear he was no fighter. 

Somehow her hand found the pantyhose she’d shoved into her pocket earlier. Asami wrapped the cord around his neck, stuffed one end into her right fist pulled hard with her good hand, as hard as she ever had in her life. Amon bucked beneath her, but his motions were slow now and she stayed up easily, one knee digging into his chest. His hands slapped uselessly at the concrete.

“You LIAR!” Asami screamed. She yanked harder on the pantyhose. She couldn’t ever remember being so furious, so hurt. Her life, this was her _life_ , Amon had taken her whole life and it was nothing but a sham. There was no revolution. There would never be equality. The benders still had power, they always had, even the fucking _Equalists_ had a bender on top, lying to all of them about his own oppression while he laughed at them behind his mask. She held tight as Amon’s face turned purple. A dark red stain slowly seeped out beneath his head. 

Asami realized she was crying now, big, wracking howls that echoed strangely in the silent factory. “Liar!” she sobbed again. “Why does everyone always lie to me?”

Amon didn’t answer.

***

Asami paced back and forth across the hangar. She’d never been much good at waiting. The whole time she pointedly did not look at the lump underneath the blanket. Finally, she’d decided she’d had enough. She stalked back to the room and yanked open the door. 

She almost ran into Tarrlok. The older man narrowed his eyes, then stepped past her out onto the floor carrying a water-filled bucket. Asami peered into the room. Iroh was stretched out on his back on the bed, arms and legs slightly splayed. He was completely naked except for the bandage on his arm and a hand towel the councilman had discretely draped across his hips—waterbending worked best on bare skin, and it appeared that Iroh had needed healing just about everywhere. He did look better though. The cuts on his face and upper body had faded to thin pink lines, and his many bruises were yellow and less visibly swollen. He seemed to be sleeping rather than unconscious, too, though Asami had no idea how she knew that. 

“How is he?” she demanded. 

“First, who is he?” Tarrlok raised an eyebrow. He looked tired, and at least ten years older than the last time Asami had seen him. “Did you run him over by mistake? Or perhaps on purpose? I heard that’s how you met young Mako.”

“It’s none of your business, Tarrlok. Answer the question.”

Something in Asami’s face must have told him not to push it. He shook his head. “Not good, Miss Sato. Waterbending is no miracle, it only accelerates the body’s healing, and this man needs a lot of healing. Four broken ribs, a punctured lung. Hairline fracture in his jaw. I did what I could, but I’m no healer, and I can’t grow bones. Some of his bruises are very deep. His nose is going to be crooked, too, unless someone who knows what they’re doing takes a look at it. I still think you should take him to a healing center.”

Asami shook her head. “That’s not going to work.”

Tarrlok’s mouth tightened. “Then he’s going to be uncomfortable, whoever he is. He’s not going to die now, I’m pretty sure of that, but he needs to rest for at least a few days while his ribs set. Deep breathing to keep the lung inflated, and painkillers if you can get them. Same for you. Don't lift anything with that arm for a day or so.” 

Asami nodded. “Thank you for your help.”

Tarrlok’s face darkened. “A life for a life, Miss Sato, that’s all.” His gaze settled on the blanket-covered body. “He was saving me, you know. I thought I’d convinced Noatok to spare me, to spare my bending on account we were brothers, but when he moved me here from Air Temple Island I knew. My brother died long ago. A special demonstration, he called it. To boost morale. Who better than the head of the Task Force?” He laughed bitterly. “No, I have no interest in helping you, Equalist. But I have much to atone for. As, I expect, do you. I may as well start now.” Tarrlok briefly met her eyes, then looked over her shoulder back into the room. “I hope he deserves it.”

“That’s none of your business, either.” Asami dug into her pocket and handed him a thick roll of yuans. “You were never here, councilman.”

He flashed her a wolfish grin. “Bribing City Council already? Like father like daughter.”

Asami’s hand shot out and wrapped around his wrist. Tarrlok’s smile vanished. He tried to pull away, but she dug her thumb into the pressure point just below his palm. The older man winced, then stood still. 

“Be careful, Tarrlok,” she said quietly. Asami let her eyes drift over to the blanket-covered lump again, then back to his, before releasing him. “You’ve already disappeared.”

Oddly, the councilman’s smile returned. “Excellent point, Miss Sato. In fact, I was considering a vacation. Perhaps it’s best I use your… contribution… to take it immediately.” He gave her a slight bow, then faced the silent body of his brother. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Asami realized she was no longer sure who he was talking to. 

Tarrlok turned and walked off into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts delving into some alternate history, all of which is probably flawed guesswork. What might have been different if Asami had openly switched sides in The Aftermath? If Asami isn't arrested in Tarrlok's raid, and then Mako and Bolin as well, does the councilman still kidnap Korra and confront Amon in the same way? Probably not -- yet I think it likely he finds out at some point that Amon is Noatok. And same with Iroh. The raid on the secret hangar in the mountains was his idea, and he and Asami destroyed most of the aircraft there. Would Korra, Mako, and Bolin have been that strategic? I think it's unlikely. So the Equalists still have plenty of aircraft, thus the empty factory. Hopefully all of this justifies what goes down in this chapter.


End file.
